I’m interested to know if anyone has had experience w/ Trainplayer or Tracklayer software programs. They just announced a new version for Mac OS and I’d like to know if it’s worth spending the $$.
I do know that their is no tool for creating easments into curves. Easments are critical for smooth operation.
My very limited experience with it (I’ve had it for a week) is that it’s hard to use compared to Railmodeller. There is an interface in Tracklayer to import an image from Railmodeller, but that just provides a background and then you have to trace all the rail, switches, etc. onto the background. In my mind, a very tedious process, plus any changes you make in Tracklayer have to made again in Railmodeller. The Trainplayer also has a relatively clumsy user interface, but it is workable. I can’t imagine running more than two or three trains with it, though. To me, it needs more keyboard shortcuts, such as for throwing switches. You can demo it for free and make your own decision.
It’s a pleasant diversion and fairly well done.
I don’t think the program is meant to be a layout planner, but a way to let you run trains on all the layouts in “101 Track Plans” (and others).
OTOH, if you were planning to use one of the published plans, it would let you operate the plan to see if it suits you. So in that sense it is sort of a “layout planner.”
Get the demo and see if it suits you.
Thanks for the opinions. Nice to see some software for us Mac users.